A love affair with Mr. Clean: He erases like magic

#444 in a series of true experiences in real estate
November 2003, Hills Newspapers

Maybe, like me, you’ve seen ads recently for a new cleaning product, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. And maybe, as I was, you are curious to know if it’s good. Well, it is. I tried it and I love it!

I didn’t buy magic erasers the first time I found them in the store. They just weren’t convincing enough. They come two to a package, priced at $3, and that seemed too much to pay for what look like perfectly plain white sponges. I read the box, found that the sponges are disposable, saw the pictures on the box showing what the sponges look like after use (kinda puckered up), and passed.

I figured the erasers were similar to disposable wipes that don’t last long or do anything special. But as it turns out, I was wrong. In the Sunday paper was a $1 coupon for Magic Erasers, and although I rarely use coupons, I did cut this one out and even remembered to use it at Safeway that very day.

Now that I had a package of two magic erasers, I hurried home to try them out. The instructions say to wet the sponge with water, squeeze out the excess, and use to wipe away dirt, scuff marks and such. It’s even supposed to remove crayon from walls. My kids are past the crayon stage, but I still have plenty of marks.

Spots where the kids touch the walls as they go down the hall, smudges where doors have been pushed open with dirty hands, black spots on floors from shoes. I have all of those. So I took the magic eraser and started down the hall wiping as I went, and it was a miracle. One swipe or two and all the marks disappeared. Then I tried the black marks on the floor. Same thing – gone. I was getting excited.

I went through the house wiping off doors and woodwork, edges of walls where the cats rub, light plate switches, fronts of cabinets. All clean, no residue, amazing.

I stopped now and then to re-wet the eraser and continued through the house looking for spots to erase. In the kitchen, I swiped the front of the dishwasher and fingerprints and drips instantly disappeared. And no scratches in the paint either. Greatly gratified, I moved to the refrigerator.

You know what they’ve done to refrigerators. The surfaces are not smooth anymore. In some misguided attempt to prevent scratches and dings, the refrigerator people have made the cases pebbly. And those bumpy pores seem to reach out and grab dirt. The handles and the edges of my refrigerator never seem to look white anymore, and cleaning them with Soft Scrub or Windex is tricky. It’s hard to reach under the handles, hard to rinse off the soap.

But the magic eraser is perfect for the job. Wipe, wipe, I went, and every particle of grunge went away, so fast that I couldn’t believe it. I thought, gee whiz, it was worth the price, even full price, for this sponge just to wash the front of my refrigerator.

The eraser was becoming deformed on one end, the part I’d been using. It was beginning to look like the photos on the package and I was understanding now that whatever is in the sponge gets used up. After some scrubbing, but quite a lot of it, the sponge doesn’t work anymore. That’s when you throw it away.

No problem. My first sponge was still doing fine when my eyes landed on the kitchen telephone, the color of which is light grey, a stupid color for a telephone because it always looks dirty. The phone was the perfect subject, and I sat down with it on my lap to see what could be done. I wiped the buttons, the sides, the receiver, all around the rounded parts. Maybe I spent a minute, certainly no more, before the phone looked all shiny and grey again.

I got the box the erasers had come in to see what else I could learn. I knew by then that I was going to be buying more, probably for the rest of my life. It says on the box that they’re good for cleaning car and boat interiors. Yes, I’ll need one in the car! Although I’ll need to apply water. I can use bottled water. I always have some in the car.

And the erasers are good for cleaning shoes. I must try that, great idea. Bathroom soap scum is mentioned. I hadn’t thought of that. What if it works on glass shower doors? That would be something.

I’m telling you, this is a great product. Get some.

P.S. They’re made in Germany. I wonder what the story is, what’s in them, how they came to be Proctor and Gamble’s?